The device in the photo doesn’t look
like much: a caterpillar-sized assembly of
metal rings and strips resembling something
you might find buried in a home-workshop
drawer. However, the technology behind it
and the long-range possibilities it
represents are quite remarkable.

This little device is called a milli-motein — a name melding its millimeter-sized components and a motorized design inspired by
proteins which naturally fold themselves into incredibly
complex shapes. This minuscule robot may be a harbinger of
future devices that could fold themselves up into almost any
shape imaginable.

The device was conceived by Neil Gershenfeld, head of
MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, visiting scientist Ara Knaian,
and postdoctoral associate Kenneth Cheung. Its key feature,
according to Gershenfeld is: “It’s effectively a one-dimensional
robot that can be made in a continuous strip without
conventionally moving parts, and then folded into arbitrary
shapes.”
To build the world’s smallest chain robot, the team had to
invent an entirely new kind of motor — not only small and
strong, but also able to hold its
position firmly even with the power
switched off. The researchers met
these needs with a new system
called an electropermanent motor.

Photo courtesy of MIT Center for Bits and Atoms

THE DRONERGAMES

DroneGames, which took place recently in San Francisco, CA, tasked
programmers with hacking UAVs in the most interesting and creative ways
possible.
DroneGames was held at the Groupon offices, and was
sponsored by the likes of Groupon itself, Windows Azure, and
NodeCopter, which recently started this helihacking movement.
Nine teams took part in the competition which was judged by Chris
Anderson (of DIYDrones and now 3DRobotics), Dale Dougherty
(founder of MAKE), Andreas Raptopoulos (co-founder of
Matternet), and a couple other people. It appears entries were
judged mostly on awesomeness, and the results certainly reflect that.

In third place was "TooTall Nate," with a hack that lets you
control an AR Drone over a cellular network with a Verizon MiFi
card, resulting in unlimited range as long as you've got a decent cell
connection.

Second place went to a team of freshmen from Stanford,
who figured out a way to control lots of different drones with just
one computer.

First place went to James Halliday, who wrote a virus that
will infect an AR Drone, and then use that drone to infect any other
AR Drones it comes across,"causing them to run amok." Or, if you want to be less
evil about it, it's a handy way to automatically deploy software onto a bunch of AR
Drones at once.

A crowd favorite seemed to be the project in the photo, from engineers at
Groupon. They taught a drone to behave itself on the end of a leash — which is
neat — but it's also constantly taking pictures and performing facial recognition.